Nut/Cracked Actor Bios

Biographies

David Parker and The Bang Group is a rhythm-based theatrical dance troupe serving Parker's intelligent fascination with the percussive possibilities of the dancing body. The work is wide-rangingly anarchic and subversive but based on an abiding love of formalism. Parker's brainy, funny dances specialize in percussive accompaniment formed by the dancing itself and thereby provide audiences an immediate physical/emotional connection to the work. The company's recent work ranges from Nut/Cracked, a 21st century-neo-vaudeville version of The Nutcracker to Parker's notorious duet for two velcro-clad men called Slapstuck. The Bang Group engages diverse audiences both internationally and at home with work that refuses to be categorized but takes off entirely on its own leaving audiences in stitches.

David Parker and The Bang Group have been presented in New York City by Dance Theater Workshop in five full-evening productions including a back-by-popular-demand engagement of Nut/Cracked in 2004 which was both a critical and popular success in an 11 performance run. TBG will return to DTW with a new evening-length work entitled Hour Upon The Stage in May of 2007. TBG has also been presented in two full-evening productions by Danspace Project at Saint Mark's Church. It appears regularly as part of DTW's Family Matters series and at DanceNow NYC at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater including in a special six-performance run of Nut/Cracked in 2005. The company recently celebrated its tenth anniversary season at The Thalia at Symphony Space. It has also appeared in New York at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Joyce Soho, World Financial Center's Arts and Events series, Town Hall, Symphony Space Dance Sampler and at numerous other venues.

Nut/Cracked has proven to be a break-out work for TBG. It was originally co-commissioned by DTW and the Carlo Felice Opera House in Genoa, Italy and received its world premiere in Genoa in November 2003 and its US premiere at DTW in January 2004. The creation of Nut/Cracked was also supported with a creative-residency at DTW and through Summer Stages Dance in Concord, Mass. It has since enjoyed a return engagement at DTW in 2004, a special run at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater in New York in 2005, and has appeared in full or in part on Family Matters at DTW, at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden, Boston's First Night Festival, Concord Summer Stages Dance in both 2004 and 2006, Two Rivers Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, The New Haven Educational Center for the Arts in Connecticut and in the inaugural season of the Barnard/DTW project in November 2005. Modeled after the DTW production of Nut/Cracked which included several professional guest artists of renown as well as children from Ellen Robbins's dance classes (which take place at DTW), TBG goes to local communities and brings professionals and student dancers into each production as guest artists as we are doing in collaboration with Theater Offensive here in Boston.

Internationally TBG has been presented at numerous European festivals including The Holland Dance Festival (The Hague), International Biennale de Charleroi Danses (Belgium), Confrontations Festival (Prague), Dance Week (Zagreb), Divadelna Nitra (Slovakia), Belluard Bollwerk (Switzerland), Tanzesprache (Vienna), Nervi Estate Festival (Genoa), Ballett Umbria (Perugia), Invito Alla Danza (Rome), Tanzmesse NRW (Essen), Dutch Touch (Paris), OT301 (Amsterdam) and the Monaco Danse Forum (Monte Carlo). Domestic touring highlights include appearances in Philadelphia at the Annenberg Center (Dance Affiliates), Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Kaatsbaan Center in Tivoli, New York, Sushi in San Diego, Clarice Smith PAC at the University of Maryland, Boston First Night Festival, Fire Island Festival, Jacob's Pillow Inside-Out Festival and the American Dance Festival's Young Choreographers and Composers program.

The Bang Group has been generously supported by the Jerome Robbins Foundation (twice), Greenwall Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts (Build Grant 2001-2002), Arts International (three times), Fund for Mutual Understanding, Netherland-America Foundation (four times), 2wice Foundation, Hale Matthews Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Heathcote Foundation, Amy Sue Rosen Foundation, and various commissioning initiatives through Dance Theater Workshop and Danspace Project as well as by several private donors.

The Bang Group has served on the faculty at Concord Summer Stages dance each summer since 2000 and will return again this upcoming summer offering performances and mentoring for young choreographers. They have also taught at Pro Danza Italia in Tuscany for three summers and regularly conduct master classes in technique, composition, repertory and administration during residencies at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Europe. The Bang Group is also the first dance company in residence at the West End Theater in Manhattan where Parker hosts and curates work by a broad range of choreographers and companies from New York City and beyond in twice-yearly seasons since 2003.

Upcoming performances include new works for The Juilliard School in December, The Krannert Center in Champaign, IL in February and the premier of Hour Upon The Stage to be presented by Dance Theater Workshop in May. For more information, go to www.thebanggroup.com.

Todd Allen, a native of Salt Lake City, Utah, began dancing at age three with Virginia Tanner's Children's Dance Theater. He received a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Brigham Young University, and in 1993 joined Utah's Repertory Dance Theater (RDT), where he danced for six years. Todd received his M.F.A. in Dance from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he was the recipient of the Dean's Fellowship. He has performed with ZviDance, The Mark Morris Dance Group, David Gordon's Pick Up Performance Group, Keigwin+Company, Cherylyn Lavagnino, Amos Pinhasi, Mark Dendy, Chris Yon, Ben Munisteri, Heidi Latsky and The Radio City Rockettes. He has taught at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and at The University of Utah. He is currently the featured guest artist/choreographer for RDT's 40th anniversary season.

Cristina Aguirre has been a member of The Bang Group since 2005. She began her modern dance career as a member of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company under the direction of Erick Hawkins and has also danced with the Nancy Meehan Dance Company, Dagmar Spain/Dance Imprints, Blue Wing Dance Company and Isadora's Dance Legacy. Ms. Aguirre also danced throughout the state of California as a member of Mark Franko's Novantiqua Dance Company. She has been dancing for Catherine Tharin since 1996, and also works for choreographer Jeanette Stoner.

Kate Digby is a dancer and choreographer who spent many years living and working in Boston. Since her apprenticeship with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company 1998-1999, Ms. Digby has performed with Prometheus Dance, Boston Dance Collective, and in works by Sean Curran, Alexandra Beller and Julie Ince Thompson. In 2000, she formed Digby Dance (www.digbydance.org) and has had work presented in New England, New York and Ecuador. She has been performing with TBG since 2005.

Jeffrey Kazin is a founding member of The Bang Group. In addition to his slapping, thudding and pointe responsibilities he is further ensconced in TBG as the General Manger, sometime graphic designer, CFO, member of the Board of Directors, and factotum. In the world beyond TBG, Mr. Kazin, as a guest artist, has appeared in Italy in the title role of the Arena di Verona Ballet's production of Dylan Dog choreographed by David Parker and as an evil step-sister in New York Theatre Ballet's Cinderella. Kazin is a board member of the Peculiar Works Project theater company and a graduate of Connecticut College and the National Theater Institute.

Kathy Kaufmann has been happily designing lighting for David Parker & the Bang Group since its inception. Having designed numerous traditional Nutcrackers, Ms. Kaufmann is especially delighted to be working on this project. As a resident designer for The Danspace Project at St. Marks Church she has had the pleasure of lighting many wonderful artists including Reggie Wilson, Ben Munisteri, Guta Hedwig, Irene Hultman, Gina Gibney, Roseanne Spradlin, Cherilyn Lavagnino, Sally Silvers, The NY Baroque Dance Company & most recently the Meredith Monk celebration: Dances to Monk. She received a 2004 New York Dance & Performance (Bessie) Award for lighting.

David Parker grew up in Lynnfield, Massachusetts and began studying tap and ballet in Boston as a teenager. One of his first pieces, Bang and Suck was presented by Dance Theater Workshop on its Fresh Tracks series in 1992. It went on to win numerous awards and citations including a prize from the Fourth International Competition for Choreographers of Contemporary Dance in Groningen, Then Netherlands, a special citation from the jury of the Kurt Jooss Award in Germany (which included Pina Bausch), a citation for emerging choreographer at the Nijinsky Awards in Monaco and numerous ten-best-of-the-year lists. The latter half of this piece is now the final pas de deux in Nut/Cracked. Parker has been commissioned by the American Dance Festival, Arena di Verona Ballet Company, Anna Sokolow Players Project, The Juilliard School, Summer Stages Dance in Concord, MA and numerous colleges and universities throughout North America and Europe. His collaborative work with Dutch avant-garde designers Melanie Rozema and Jeroen Teunissen was awarded a New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award in 2002. Parker serves on the faculty of the Alvin Ailey School, Barnard College, the board of directors of Danspace Project and The Field and is a member of the Bessies Committee. He is also a co-founder of The Pink Ribbon Project: Dancers in Motion Against Breast Cancer.

Nic Petry holds a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University and received his MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois. While in school he danced for Sara Hook, Ze'eva Cohen, Renée Wadleigh, and in works by Mark Morris, Lar Lubovitch, Chamecki/Lerner and Bill Young, Nic first worked with David Parker and The Bang Group at Summer Stages Dance in Concord in 2002 and joined TBG in 2005 taking on several roles in Nut/Cracked as well as creating new ones.

Amber Sloan has been a member of The Bang Group since 2002. She has also had the pleasure of working with Keely Garfield, Sara Hook, Chris Elam, and Stephan Koplowitz. Ms. Sloan's choreography has been presented in Illinois, Virginia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts; and in New York at various venues including Danspace Project's Food for Thought at St. Mark's Church, Soaking Wet at The West End Theater, the DanceNow/NYC festival, and Dance Space Center's Raw Material. Originally from Northern Virginia, she received a BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Emily Tschiffely is a graduate of both the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She makes dances and songs that have been seen in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and New York. She feels real lucky teaching dance and leading creative experiences with children and adults but has the most fun imaginable with David Parker, Amber Sloan and Jeffrey Kazin on a daily basis. Her mom is totally great.